Zero"s body tightened, giving George a firm hug. Although he was not short, George was more like a small mountain. When Zero stood together with him, it would only reach the chest of this Phoenix City officer. With George tightly holding him, Zero"s face was pressed against George"s chest. It was hard for him to breath.
A moment later, George let go of Zero and slammed his palm on its back, knocking it off its feet. The bold officer said, "I can"t tell, zero." Brat, you"re quite capable. We haven"t seen each other for more than two months and you"ve already wandered from the wilderness to the Heroic Spirit Hall. h.e.l.l, you"ll have to buy me a few drinks tonight. "
Thinking back to the time when the two of them were drinking in Phoenix City, he gave a knowing smile. He said, "No problem, but let"s get down to business first." Before that, let me introduce you to a few people. "
Afterwards, Zero introduced Anthony and Lanken to George, and also introduced them to Su et al.
Rankin had always been dissatisfied with Zero as the person in charge of this operation. Now that he saw how familiar this Phoenix City officer seemed to be with Zero, he felt even more disdain for him. Thus, he did not give George any face. Besides, Rankin thought that George, who had no special abilities, was only slightly better off than the refugees in the wilderness, and did not deserve his respect at all.
George didn"t mind. He"d seen many Adepts like Rankin who looked down on ordinary people. In all fairness, Rankin"s att.i.tude wasn"t bad.
As for Anthony, this person with the Sensory Perception ability was rather polite. The white youth"s face always wore a kind of gentle smile, full of suns.h.i.+ne and warmth, which Zero had always thought was more appropriate for a priest"s robe than this one, though Anthony did not seem to believe in the Catholic way.
Anthony"s abilities were very special. His occupation was the "Explorer", and his main abilities were "Regional Scanning" and "Soul Chains". The former could sense the movements of the entire region within a thousand square meters, and play a role of scouting and deploying. The latter, on the other hand, used the power of the soul to construct the spiritual rainbow bridge, ignoring the distance between the regions to achieve zero-barrier communication. With Anthony"s current abilities, he had a limit of five to be able to construct the spiritual rainbow bridge.
It could be said that Anthony did not have an outstanding offensive ability. However, these two Awareness Domains abilities allowed him to become an outstanding auxiliary a.s.sault team member. The vanguard"s usual fighting style was based on Anthony"s two abilities, allowing for efficient and flexible tactical arrangements on the battlefield. In the previous simulation, the vanguard had no idea of Zero"s ability, so Zero used table tennis to get rid of Anthony first, thus paralyzing the entire vanguard command system. Otherwise, the Windwalker"s team wouldn"t have been able to advance successfully.
Undoubtedly, in actual combat, Anthony"s ability was often more important than a pure offensive ability user.
After getting to know the more important members of Zero"s team, George led the three captains to the supply and off-road vehicles. The SUV was bloodstained and riddled with bullet holes, so one could imagine the intensity of the battle. As for the supplies cars, they were relatively undamaged. Except for the tyres, which were almost completely destroyed. Near the two cars, there were large patches of black blood stains on the ground. One could imagine the fate that had befallen the members of the two cars.
After circling the two cars, he asked George, "Have you cleaned up the area?"
He asked this because the ground was too clean. Not only was there no sh.e.l.l, there were no footprints or any other traces.
"On the contrary, apart from bringing the bodies of the dead back to the city to be frozen and preserved. The surrounding areas are all surrounded and protected by us, we didn"t even touch anything. " George revealed a wry smile: "In fact, the bandits of this incident are very careful." When I arrived, I had already made a preliminary survey, but to no avail. They were really crafty when they cleaned up any possible information that might have been leaked. "
After George finished speaking, the two captains, who were inspecting the SUV and the goods vehicle respectively, alighted from the vehicle. Whether it was the smiling Anthony or the sullen Rankin, they both shook their heads at Zero. This showed that there was nothing left for them to follow.
Zero turned to Sue and said, "Sue, call the others. "With the incident at the centre, conduct a carpet search of the area within 500 square kilometers, and don"t miss any clues."
The recruits had all been trained in tracking and searching, and since their average abilities were around the third step, they were naturally more qualified for this job than the regular soldiers of Phoenix City. After giving this order, Zero turned to George and said, "Let"s go back to the city and check if there are any clues on those corpses."
So George himself drove a Land Cruiser and brought Zero, Anthony, and George back to Phoenix.
In the mortuary of Phoenix City"s medical center, eight rapidly frozen corpses were lined up side by side in front of a few people. George produced a tactical board at the same time and called up a set of photographs. The photo was taken when the bodies of the team members were found, and it remained where the bodies had been, unchanged.
The list included the captain of the guards, Sam, the soldier, Oni, and three other firepower bearers. They were the driver of the escort car, Scott, as well as a driver and two other soldiers on the truck. Right now, the eight corpses were right in front of him. He took the tactical board George handed him and looked first at the photographs taken of the SUV.
In the photo, in the driver"s seat, the driver, Stoker, was lying on his back on the steering wheel, a clear bullet hole in his forehead. In the pa.s.senger seat, soldier Oni was lying on his side towards the door. There was a military knife sticking out of Oni"s body.
George added, "When we found the body, we could tell from the scene that the weapon on the soldier was owned by the driver. The bullet hole on the driver"s head was caused by one of the soldiers in the backseat. From the looks of it, there must have been internal strife in the carriage. Maybe this driver is the traitor, he was killed after his companions found out. "
After hearing that, Zero shook his head, "The possibility of that is not high. Judging from the way the robbers acted, they were very cautious. If the driver was a real insider, he had a low chance of being exposed, or even a risk of being exposed. From the photos, he looked more like someone who had suddenly attacked a soldier named Oni and then been shot by a comrade in the back seat. And look at his eyes. "
Zero zoomed in on the picture, and Schock"s face filled the screen.
The others gathered around, and Zero said, "Didn"t you notice that the deceased"s eyes were too calm, or even lifeless?"
In the photo, Schock"s eyes were as calm as they were, almost emotionless. This was impossible, especially since there was neither anger nor fear in his eyes after he had killed Oni and had been killed by his comrades. Rather, there was nothing. Even if one"s pupil spread after death, their emotions before death would remain fixed in their eyes.
From the look in his eyes, however, he was in no mood to die.
"It"s a mental hint." Alenyi said, "One of the abilities in the Perception Domain is to be able to turn the target into a puppet through the suggestion of the mind. The puppet did not have any feeling, and would unconditionally obey the order of the esper within the duration of the ability"s effect. This driver was controlled at that time! "